USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 18
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A number of these new surveys were in Buckingham, Solebury, and some in Plumstead, which were then filling up with settlers, but had not yet been organized into townships.13 James Logan says they were well supplied with surveyors in Bucks county, and he
13 Buckingham and Solebury were organized about that time.
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wrote in the spring of 1703 that the surveys "are in good forward- ness," and hopes to have them finished in the summer. Among the tracts surveyed in Wrightstown was one of five hundred and seventy- five acres to Benjamin Clark, which adjoined the town square on the south-east side. It will be noticed that many of the names mentioned in these surveys are no longer to be found in the county.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
CHAPTER XIII. -
SOUTHAMPTON.
1703.
Second group of townships .- Pickets of civilization .- Southampton first named .- Separated from Warminster .- Original settlers .- John Swift .- Meeting granted. -Additional settlers .- Thomas Callowhill, a land-owner .- Town plat .- Holland settlers .- Krewson, Vanartsdalen, Hogeland, et al .- Still later settlers .- John Purdy .- Curious dreams .- The Watts family .- The Duffields .- Ralph Dracot .- The Davises .- Moravian church .- John Perkins .- Taxables and population .- Southampton Baptist church .- Quaint inscription .- Davisville church .- Dutch Reformed .- Its early name .- Paulus Van Vleck officiates .- Dortius the pastor .- Schlatter comes to settle troubles .- Mr. Larzelere .- Location of Southampton .- Roads .- Villages .- Turnpikes.
OUR second group of townships is composed of Southampton, Warminster, Newtown, Wrightstown, Buckingham, and Solebury. They were settled about the same time, or immediately after, the townships of the first group, and we purpose to tell the story of their settlement in detail. The territorial limits of this group reach to the central section of the county, throughout which considerable land was taken up prior to 1700. Among the pickets of civilization, who early pushed their way up through the woods from the Dela- ware, in advance of the tidal wave, may be mentioned John Chap- man, John and Thomas Bye, William Cooper, George Pownall, and Roger Hartly. For several years the supplies for a part of this
1
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
region were drawn from Falls and Middletown, and transported through the forest on horseback, or on the shoulders of those who did not own horses. When Gwin's mill was built on the Penny- pack, their bread supply was drawn from a more convenient point, until mills were erected nearer home.
In the proceedings of the provincial council, 1685, fixing the boundary line between Bucks and Philadelphia counties, South- ampton and Warminster are called by their present names. But at that early day these townships were not organized subdivisions of the county, but were only settlements with English names. 1 The report of the jury laying out the group of townships, in 1692, con- cludes thus : "Southampton and the lands about it, with Warminster, one," which means that these two townships, with the unorganized lands adjoining, embracing Northampton and probably Warwick, should be considered one township. For several years this township and Warminster were one for all municipal purposes, and it was not until 1703 that the court recognized Southampton as a township, and authorized it to elect its own supervisor of highways. It would appear from the records that the two townships were not entirely separated until a later period. At the March term, 1711, the in- habitants of Southampton petitioned court to be separated from Warminster, in the county assessments and collection of taxes ; whereupon it was ordered that the said petitioners and the lands of James Carter, Ralph Dracot, and Joseph Tomlinson may be, in future, one township and have a constable appointed to serve therein. It is stated in the court records, that the inhabitants of Southampton petitioned at March term, 1712, to be allowed to remain a township by themselves. Among the names signed to the petition are Edward Bolton, John Morris, Ralph Dunn, John Nay- lor, Thomas Harding, Daniel Robinson, Mary Poynter, Richard Lather, and William Beans.
When Thomas Holme made his map of the province, in 1684, there were thirteen 2 land-owners in what is now Southampton; probably the greater part were settlers, and some of them had pur- chased land before leaving England. Of these early settlers John
1 As Holme's map, 1684, gives the boundaries of Southampton and Warminster as they now exist, it is barely possible that these two townships were already laid out and named, but there is no direct testimony to support it.
2 John Gilbert, Thomas Hould, Thomas Groom, Joseph Jones, Robert Marsh, John Swift, Enoch Flowers, Jonathan Jones, Mark Betris, Richard Wood, John Luffe, John Martin, and Robert Pressmore.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
Swift,3 one of Penn's pioneers, owned five hundred acres that lay near Feasterville, between the Street road and county line. He was a Friend, but went off with Keith in 1692, and ultimately be- came a Baptist minister. He was called to the ministry in 1702, and, although never ordained, preached nine years in Philadelphia as an assistant. For some unknown cause he was excommunicated in 1730, and died in 1732. He represented Bucks county in the assembly in 1701, and 1707. The lands of John Martin, Robert Pressmore, and John Luffe were situated in the upper part of the township touching the line of Warminster, and extending to the county line. Robert Bresmal was a settler in Southampton as early as 1683, in which year he married Mary Webber, "of John Hart's family."
Soon after the settlement of the township, the Friends of South- ampton requested to have a meeting settled among them, which was granted April 1st, 1686, and a general meeting for worship, once a week, was ordered at the house of James Dilworth. Previous to that Friends had met at each others houses for worship. They have never been strong enough in the township to warrant the erec- tion of a meeting-house, and they attend meetings elsewhere, generally at Middletown and Byberry.
As the location and soil were inviting, settlers flocked in rapidly, and in 1709 we find the additional names of Stephen Sands, John Vansant, Thomas Cutler, James Carter, John Naylor, Joseph Webb, John Frost, John Shaw, Clement Dungan, Jeremiah Dungan, James Carrell, John Morris, Thomas Dungan, John Clark, David Griffith, Christopher Day, Nathaniel West, William Gregory, and Samuel Selers. The Dungans were sons of Reverend Thomas Dungan, the same who immigrated from Rhode Island, and organized the Baptist church at Cold spring, near Bristol, in 1684. Joseph Dungan, grandson of the Reverend Thomas, died August 25th, 1785, in his seventy-sixth year, and was buried at Southampton. We find no further mention of Thomas Cutler, but William, who was an early settler there, died in 1714. They were probably brothers of John Cutler, who made the re-survey of the county in 1702-3. James Carter died in 1714. John Morris bought five hundred and eighty- two acres of James Plumley in 1698, which lay in the upper part of the township, between the Street road and county line, and a
3 In 1708 John Swift paid his quit-rent "in goods and chattels," to Lawrence John- son and Charles Heafte, at Pennsbury.
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considerable ·part, if not all, north of the Middle road. When the re-survey was made, in 1702, Thomas Harding was one of the largest land-owners in the township, his acres numbering six hun- dred and eighteen. Joseph Tomlinson was there early, and died in 1723. April 20th, 1705, four hundred and seventeen acres were surveyed, by warrant, to Thomas Callowhill, the father-in-law of William Penn, situated in the upper part of the township, and bounded by the Street road and Warminster line. It covered the site of Davisville. John, Thomas, and Richard Penn inherited this tract from their grandfather Callowhill, and January 20th, 1734, they conveyed one hundred and forty-nine acres by patent to Stephen Watts. The land of John Morris bounded this tract on the south- west.
On Holme's map is laid off, in about the middle of the township, a plat one mile square, similar to what is seen in Newtown and Wrightstown. As in those townships it was, no doubt, intended for a park or town plat, and to have been divided among the land- owners in the township outside of it, in the proportion of one to ten. But as we have not met with it in any of the Southampton convey- ances, it probably had no other existence than on the map.
At an early day, and following the English Friends, there was a considerable influx of Hollanders into the township, and the large and influential families of Krewson, Vanartsdalen, Vandeventer, Hogeland, Barcalow, Vanhorne, Lefferts, Vansant and Vandeveer descend from this sturdy stock. Other families, which started out with but one Holland ancestor, have become of almost pure blood by intermarriage. The descendants of Dutch parentage in this and adjoining townships have thus become very numerous. Both the spelling of the names, and their pronunciation, have been consider- ably changed since their ancestors settled in the township.
Derrick Krewson + was a land-holder, if not a settler, in South- ampton as early as 1684, for the 11th of September, 1717, he paid to James Steele, receiver of the Proprietary quit-rents, £9. 11s. 4d. for thirty-three years' interest due on five hundred and eighty acres of land in this township. In March, 1756, Henry Krewson paid sixteen years' quit-rent to E. Physic on two hundred and thirty acres in Southampton.s The will of Derrick Krewson was executed Jan-
4 Original spelling Kræsen.
6 Down to 1756 the Proprietary quit-rents were paid at Pennsbury, but we do not know how much later.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
uary 4th, 1729, but the time of his death is not known. He prob- ably came from Long Island, the starting point of most of the Hollanders who settled in Bucks county.
The Vanartsdalens of Southampton and Northampton are de- scended from Simon, son of John Von Arsdalen, from Ars Dale, in Holland, who immigrated to America in 1653, and settled at Flat- bush, Long Island. He married a daughter of Peter Wykoff, and had two sons, Cornelius Simonse and John. The former became the husband of three Dutch spouses,6 and the latter of two. Our Bucks county family comes mediately from Nicholas and Abra- ham, sons of John, who settled in Southampton. Nicholas married Jane Vansant, and had seven children, and John Vanartsdalen, of Richborough, is a grandson. Simon, the eldest son, died in 1770, and a daughter, Ann, married Garret Stevens. The Vandeventers,7 Vanhornes, Vandeveers and Vansants, 8 are descended from Jaco- bus Van de Venter, Rutgert Vanhorne, Cornelius Vandeveer, and William Van Zandt, who came from Netherland in 1660. There are but few of the Vandeventers and Vandeveers in the township, but the Vanhornes and Vansants are numerous.
Dirck Hanse Hogeland,9 the first of the name who came to America, commanded the vessel that brought him from Holland to New Amsterdam in 1655. He settled at Flatbush, and in 1662 married Anne Bergen, widow of Jan Clerq, by whom he had six children. He built the first brick house on Manhattan island. His grandson Dirck, son of William, born in 1698, and married to Mariah Slot, of New York, with others of the descendants, had set- tled in Southampton before 1729. They had a family of ten chil- dren, from whom have descended a numerous progeny. As a rule both sons and daughters married into Holland families, and the blood to this time has been kept comparatively pure. The distin- quishing features of the Hogelands are large families of children, longevity, and stalwart sons. 10 The youngest son of Dirck, Derrick
6 Tjelletzi Reiners Wizzlepennig, Ailtie Willems Konwenhoven, and Marytzi Dirks.
7 The correct name is Van de Venter.
8 Van Zandt.
9 Hogeland, or Hoogland, is the Dutch for highlands. In 1746 Indians living among the highlands on the Hudson were called the Hogeland Indians.
10 The will of Dirck Hogeland is dated December 7th, 1775, and proved August 1st, 1778. He left his six daughters £220 each, a considerable sum in that day, and a large landed estate to them and his sons. Four hundred acres are specified in the will, and other lands not described. His youngest son, Dirck, afterward called Der- rick, got two hundred and fifty acres.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
K., was long a justice of the peace in Southampton, but resigned about 1820, on account of age. He was the grandfather of Elias Hogeland, late sheriff of this county. Some of the family have wandered to Kentucky, where the members occupy positions of honor.
In the spring of 1662, William Hanse Von Barkeloon and his brother, Harman Jansen Von Barkeloo with wife and two children, landed at New York, where Harman died prior to December, 1671. William married Elizabeth Jane Claessen in 1666, and died in 1683, leaving eight children. His son Dirck married Jamelia Von Ars Dale September 17th, 1709, and settled at Freehold, New Jersey. Conrad, born December 4th, 1680, died 1754, settled on the Rari- tan, and married a daughter of Jacob Laes, of Monmouth. It was their son, Conrad, who settled in this county, and was the immedi- ate ancestor of the Barcalows of Southampton. Conrad's son, Gar- ret, married Elizabeth, daughter of the first Dirck Hogeland, and had a family of nine children, who intermarried with the Finneys, Cornells, Mitchells, Baneses, Stevenses and McMasters. The de- scendants of Garret Barcalow are numerous in Southampton.
The Stevenses are English on the male side, the ancestor, Abra- ham, coming to this county shortly after William Penn. His son John married Sarah Stootholf, and their son, Ann Vanartsdalen, daughter of Nicholas, one of the two brothers of the name who first settled in Southampton. The Benjamin Stevens, who married Elizabeth Barcalow, was a son of Abraham Stevens and Mary Hoge- land, daughter of Daniel, who was brother of the Dirck who settled in this county before 1720. The mother of the present Benjamin Stevens was a sister of Abraham, Isaac and William Hogeland, and. Garret B. Stevens of the Berks county bar is a son of Benjamin.
The ancestor of the Lefferts family, Leffert Pieterse, immigrated from North Brabant, Holland, in 1660, and settled at Flatbush, Long Island. His grandson, Leffert Leffert, the son of Peter Lef- fertze 12 and Ida Suydam came into the county in 1738, with the Cornells, on a prospecting tour. He returned the following year and settled in Northampton township, on a four hundred acre tract 13.
11 This name has been variously spelled, Borculo, Barckelloo, Burkiloo and Barke- loo, by different branches of the family. The family came from Borkelo in the earl- dom of Zutphen, and province of Guilderland, Holland.
12 The family on Long Island retain the name "Leffertze," but the first generation born in this county dropped the "z" and final "e," and substituted "s."
13 It was bounded by lands of Bernard Vanhorne, Isaac Vanhorne, Adrian Cornell,
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
bought of Isaac Pennington, being part of six hundred and fifty-one acres that William Penn granted to Edmund Pennington, his father. The deed is dated June 7th, 1739, and the consideration £492. His will was executed October 6th, 1773, and he probably died soon afterward. His wife's name was Ann. He left five sons and two daughters, but the greater part of his estate went to his sons. The. venerable John Lefferts, of Southampton, now in his ninety-third year, is the grandson of Leffert Leffert.
The Vanhornes came into the township early, but the time is not known. The 6th and 7th and May, 1722, Bernard Christian, of Bergen, New Jersey, conveyed two hundred and ninety acres to Abraham Vanhorne, by deed of lease and re-lease, which was prob- ably situated in Southampton. Other Holland families settled in this and the adjoining township of Northampton about the same period, among whom we find the names of Staates, now of Bensa- lem, Bennet, Rhodes, Johnson, Fenton, Wright, etc. They were generally large slaveholders, while the " institution" existed in this state. They were universally patriotic and loyal during the Revo- lution, and often the slaves accompanied their masters to the field. These old Holland families have a tradition that at one time Wash- ington passed through Southampton, and stopped at the houses of some of their patriotic ancestors, and their descendants still cherish the tables he ate at, the mugs he drank from, and the chairs he sat upon. These families have become so thoroughly Anglicized that no trace is left of their ancestry.
At a still later period the families of Purdy, Watts, Folwell, Search, Miles, Duffield, Davis, and others, well-known, settled in Southampton, of some of which we have been able to collect information.
John Purdy u immigrated from Ireland in 1742, and settled on the Pennypack, in Moreland township, married Grace Dunlap, and died in 1752, leaving a son, William, and three daughters. The son married Mary Roney, whose father came from Ireland in 1735, and served in the Revolutionary army. In 1797 the family removed to western New York, except the son, William, who married a daughter of William Folwell, of Southampton, whither he removed
Henry Krewson, Isaac Bennet, John Shaw, and Jeremiah Dungan. He owned a plantation in Newtown.
14 The name is Anglo-Irish, and thought to be a modification of Pardew, Pardee, or Pardoe, and is more common in England and Scotland than Ireland.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
and spent his life. He became a prominent man, commanded a company of volunteers in the war of 1812-15, was several times elected to the assembly, and prothonotary of the court of common pleas. His son Thomas was elected sheriff of the county in 1842, and his grandson John, a son of Thomas, was elected to the same office in 1872. The family are no longer residents of the township. The family records relate singular dreams the first John Purdy and his wife had, and their remarkable fulfillment. On a certain night he dreamed that he was going to Philadelphia on a great white horse, and that as he went by Abington the horse turned into the grave- yard and rolled. About the same time his wife dreamed that a large white horse came and pulled down half her house. A few days afterward, while attending the election at Newtown, where they were running horses down the main street, he was run against by a large white horse and killed, and his death, in fact, was equivalent to pulling down half the wife's house.
The Watts family 15 was probably in the province some time be- fore they came to the county. Stephen Watts settled in South- ampton in 1734, where he bought one hundred and forty-nine acres of the Penns, now owned by John Davis. He may have been a de- scendant of Reverend John Watts, who preached at Pennypack as early as 1690. Stephen had three sons, Stephen, attorney-at-law, Philadelphia, and John and Arthur who passed their lives where they were born. The latter left two children, William, who was associate-judge and clerk of the courts of the county, and died in 1834, and Ann, who married Josiah Hart, and died in Doylestown in 1815.16 The Purdys, Wattses and Folwells were connected by marriage, the latter family coming into the township about the period of the other two. The date-stone on the old Folwell man- sion, near the road from Davisville to Southampton church, and torn down in 1874, bore the inscription, "A. M. M., 1719."
The Duffield 17 family can be traced back to the reign of Edward II., when Richard was bailiff of York, 1535. The first of the name
15 The Wattses claim a common ancestry with Doctor Isaac Watts, the distinguished divine and writer of sacred songs.
16 John Watts, probably a member of the family, was a noted surveyor in his day, and lived at Lower Dublin. He was a teacher of reputation.
17 The name is probably Norman-French, and is variously spelled, as Du Fielde, De Duffeld, Duffeld, or Duffield. It is found among the oldest records of Ripon cathedral, where the name is Duffeld, Duffeilde, Duffyeld, and Duffield. William Duffield was arch deacon of Cleveland in 1435, and died in 1452.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
came to England with William the Conqueror. The Pennsylvania Duffields are descended from Benjamin, the son of Robert and Bridget, born 1661, who landed at Burlington, New Jersey, in 1679, and is said to have been one of a delegation who came across the river to welcome William Penn on his arrival. He afterward set- tled in Lower Dublin, married a daughter of Arthur Watts, and was the father of thirteen children. He died at Philadelphia in 1741, and was buried at Christ church. The late Alfred T. Duf- field, of Southampton, was the fifth in descent from Benjamin, and was the son of Jacob, who died at Sackett's Harbor in 1815, while in the military service of the country. Edward Duffield,18 the grand- son of Benjamin, was distinguished for his scientific acquirements, was the associate and friend of Rittenhouse, and one of the execu- tors of Franklin. Benjamin Duffield has a numerous posterity.
The Davises came into Southampton nearly seventy years ago. The great-grandfather of John Davis, who came from Wales, set- tled in Solebury township in the first quarter of the last century. Of his two brothers, one went to the West Indies, where he made a fortune by planting, and returned to England, the other studied law, became an attorney in London, and family tradition says he re- ceived the honor of knighthood. John came to Bucks county. The Southampton family have descended from John, the grandson of the first progenitor in America, born 1760, married Ann Simpson in 1783, removed to Maryland in 1795, thence to Ohio in 1816, where he died in 1832. He was a soldier and officer in the Revolution, from Trenton to Yorktown, was at Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, Stony Point and the Cowpens, was in Colonel Butler's Pennsylvania regiment, and Lafayette's light infantry, was an ensign at Brandywine, and assisted to carry Lafayette from the field. The present John Davis was born in 1788, and spent his youth at his father's house in Maryland ; but he married a daughter of Josiah Hart in 1813, and settled in Southampton, where he has passed his life. He became a man of prominence and influence, was a major- general of militia, member of Congress, surveyor of the port ot Philadelphia, and held other places of public trust.
The Moravians made a lodgment in Southampton about 1740. On the 2d of June, 1744, they purchased a lot of one acre and nine
18 It is said that the first consultation held by Jefferson and others, on the subject of Independence, was at the house of Edward Duffield, at the north-west corner of Fifth and Market streets.
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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
perches, on which a meeting-house was erected, and where the itin- erants, Owen Rice, John Okely, and others of Bethlehem, preached in English, until 1747.19 The site of this early Moravian church was probably on the lot of the Gimlettown school-house, where the remains of an old foundation wall can be traced. This location is sustained by the tradition of the neighborhood. The lot is on the Bristol road, and the title is traced back to Thomas Phillips, before 1687.
Among the early families in the township we omitted to mention that of Dracot, or Dracket, probably of French descent. Ralph Dracot was there before 1712. About 1750 one of this name, who lived on the Newtown road below the Buck, discovered black lead on the farm belonging to John Naylor.20 He kept the secret to himself for some time, quietly extracting the lead which he sold in Philadelphia ; and when the owner found it out he generously per- mitted him to get what lead he wanted. Dracot died in 1780. The mine was worked within the memory of the author, but has long since been abandoned. The lead is said to be of a good quality.
One of the most remarkable characters that lived in Southampton the present generation, was John Perkins, who died August 8, 1838, at the age of eighty-four years. He was blind for upward of seventy years, but nevertheless was enabled by his industry to lay up enough to support him in his old age. His principal occupation was threshing grain and dressing flax, and he was so well acquainted with the roads that he could travel alone in all directions. He was a member of Southampton Baptist church about sixty years, and was a regular attendant on the services, in all weathers.
The earliest record of taxables in Southampton that we have met, is 1742, when there were forty-three, the heaviest one paying ten shillings on a valuation of £60. The rate was two pence per pound, and nine shillings for single men. By 1762 the taxables had in- creased to eighty-five. In 1784 the population of the township was five hundred and sixty-eight, of whom thirty were negroes, and there were eighty-four dwelling houses. In 1810 the number of inhabitants was 739; 1820, 907; 1830, 1,228, of which 234 were taxables ; 1840, 1,256 ; 1850, 1,407; 1860, 1,356, and in 1870, 1,393, of which fifty-eight were of foreign birth. If these figures be cor- rect, the township gained but one hundred and sixty-five in forty
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